We have had a bit of a mutiny in our house when it comes to breakfast. Since I have started work again I am flat out getting myself out the door so Richard gets the girls happening - and on the days I don't work well honestly I stay in bed - so Richard is still in charge. The girls leave by 7.20 each day so it's kind of hectic.

So the girls have been complaining there's nothing for breakfast. I have written a list that we have placed on the fridge now they can choose happily from the list and hopefully the call of there is nothing for breakfast will be banished.

I'm always on the lookout for good clean eating recipes (no processed stuff and butter sugar free) for in lunch boxes. While there are lots of recipes out there that fit this category there are plenty that are not very appetizing and quite honestly don't work or don't taste great. Not much point in eating a treat that isn't yummy just because it's healthy.

Here are my top 5 favourite cakes and loafs which I have had work and are delicious guilt free goodies at their best.

Welcome to this week's post on Happy lunches. I rejoined the work force this week and so now I get to pack my lunch too - HOORAY - so exciting.

Of course it required me going in search of a cute new lunch box - goes without saying really! Though I found that they are few and far between because it's not lunch box buying season.

I did however find the perfect thing - and currently they are on special at woolworths so I bought some for the girls too.

It's about the size of a sandwich but double and has a sealed section that then folds over - hmm I think that makes no sense ... But it's really good LOL and cost $3.70 YAY ( on special i think normally they are $5.99).

I put a salad in the big section and then bits in the other part.

The loaf is this apricot loaf recipe ( try it if you haven't - really good! ) I also added a tin of salmon for my salad and a little decor container with balsamic vinegar and cold pressed oil. Fruit doesn't fit in well so you either need another container with your fruit if you chop it up or just take some whole pieces and voila - yummy clean eating lunch in just a few minutes.

There is no excuses not to take a yummy salad. I promise that it's just as fast as making a sandwich if you are organised before hand.

Some Simple Salad Making Tips

Keep all your "salad " stuff in on spot in the fridge - in a basket or container so you can just quickly pull it out

Sunday Night Prep

chop up some sweet potato into little cubes and roast it with some macadamia nut oil. Once it's cool keep it in a container in the fridge and you can add it to each salad through the week. ( Thank you to Ben from my gym for this tip - its my favourite! )

prepare some quinoa - pop it in the fridge to use with sweet potato or swap them for variety

roast some chicken tenderloins

boil some eggs and leave in their shells

To Buy

variety of lettuce/ spinach/rocket

"rainbow salad" from woolies - which is beet carrot and zucchini grated - or grate your own and keep in a container in the fridge

cherry or grape tomatoes (no chopping)

any other fruit or vege you like - cucumber, mushrooms, strawberries, celery, snow peas, radish, capsicum

tins - chick peas, salmon or tuna ( oil free flavourings free ones)

walnuts (packed with nutrients and are an excellent source of omega-3
fats. They are also rich in antioxidants, particularly a compound called
ellagic acid, which supports the immune system and has
anti-cancerous properties) or pine nuts

Making your salad

Take out your container - add your lettuce to the bottom then add which ever ingredients you have pulled out. I try to keep the chopping to a minimum so I usually choose two or three things to be chopped and the rest stay whole - strawberries, mushrooms, snowpeas are fine whole. Radish add a peppery flavour and are yummy at the moment.

Add sweet potato or quinoa or chicken or a boiled egg or add your tin of salmon or tuna to your lunch bag.

Handful of nuts - I find mine are still crunchy by lunch but you make like to keep them in a different container.

Make your dressing - you can make something like this in advance and just add it to a little container to pour on when you are ready to eat or else just mix some cold pressed olive oil with some balsamic.

Before you close it up - check you have lots of different colours and you'll know you have

Just back on the lunch box - it would be perfect for leftovers too- stir fry etc - though you would have to pop it into a bowl to heat at work.

Mel is unwell this week so you will have to make do with just my tips for happy lunches :)

A salad is a fast food in our house these days. To be honest though I don't put alot of thought into salads - whether they are just as a side dish or the main attraction. It's really whatever I have on hand.

Through the day for lunch, I'll make a quick salad and then add a tin of tuna or salmon or some chickpeas.

My basic one at the moment is lettuce ( love baby cos ) or spinach or a mix of greens, a tomato chopped up, a handful of strawberries chopped up, some avocado and a handful of walnuts.

While obviously salad is pretty clean eating, it's the dressings that tend to be dodgy...

Todays post in our Heathy Eating Lunches is all about eating out.One of the challenges about being out and about during school holidays is finding "eating out" treats and food that will not compromise your clean eating. It's not easy on too levels - firstly finding something and secondly the price!

It drives me crazy that a salad sandwich for example at a store like Healthy Habits can run up to $9.00 for just the sandwich when you can get a happy meal with burgers chips drink and a toy for under $5.00 depending on the franchise.

Anyhow with school holidays on us, we have to be out most days because of Richard's work commitments so we inevitably find ourselves having to eat out.

The girls have a Mini Moo or Chicken Licken Burger. ($7.50) The Buns are made fresh ( sadly from white flour - but contain no additives or preservatives ) The meat is all grass fed YAY and the salad veges are fresh and we share a chips.

Another hang out is the sushi train places. - white rice boo but never the less fresh and reasonable prices. I tend to stick to the rice wrapper rolls and a bowl of miso and the girls will have sushi.

Boost Juice is our favourite snack place. They have the organic popcorn I have mentioned before. We buy it if we are going to a movie too and it's only $1 if you have it with a drink. While we can argue the sugar content in a fresh juice I much prefer them having that where I see the juice pouring out of the machine from fresh pieces of fruit than any of the bottle stuff that is filled with goodness knows what. We also love their protein balls - I've since found out they have some sugar in them ( even though its not listed on their ingredients at the counter grr ) but I can live with that over a chocolate bar.

Other than that we will head to a cafe that makes salads sandwiches/wraps or omelettes.

We always carry fruit, containers of nuts and bottles of water. Have you seen the new squish-ie bottles in Big W for just $1? They come with a combine too for easy attaching to bags. I can't find a picture on line but here is something very similar

Tomorrow we are heading to Wet n Wild for the day. We will take a picnic lunch of lots of fresh cut fruit and chopped up veges with home made pesto and guacamole. That way we can munch between rides :) No doubt by the end of the day the girls will talk me into an ice cream.

Holidays are for relaxing the rules somewhat I believe but we still work to our 80% clean rule and save the treat times.

So if you are eating clean or are challenged with dietary restraints where do you choose to eat out? I'd love some more ideas. dont; forget to pop over to Mel's blog she is sharing a recipe for a yummy granola bar that has her difficult to please son raving :)

I'm not sure if you've ever noted but we are pretty partial to sweet treats and baking in our house. Now that we eat clean 80 - 90 % of the time it's no reason for us not to have treats but my rules are simple - no butter, no refined sugar, no sugar replacements other than honey or pure maple syrup ( or agave at a push ), no processed white flours.

At first it was pretty daunting but now I am well into the swing of it and have worked out what will come out well and what end up in the bin. There have been plenty of fails along the way. I began with stalking blogs and today I am going to share my top 5 favourite

This weeks post in our lunch series is all about Banana Bread. I seriously love the stuff. I would eat at least 3 slices a week from places like Gloria Jeans, Maccas Cafe and Zarraffas. The girls loved it too and I would make a really good one filled with brown sugar and butter. It was one thing we all really missed when we started clean eating.

So I have been trialling soooo many recipes ( tough but you know someone had to do it). None really hit the spot and I was beginning to despair. In the end I made a version of a few combined to come up with this- hands down best ever Banana Bread. Even if you don't eat clean you should try this - so much yummier than the butter/sugar style.

It even looks like the real thing - but no sugar, no butter and no wheat flour. It's lovely and dense and cuts beautifully.

1 cup almond flour

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup gentle fibre

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3 small ripe bananas, mashed ( about 1 1/4 cups )

4 eggs

2 tablespoons macadamia nut oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup walnuts

cinnamon

Mix your flours, fibre and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, mix the mashed bananas, eggs, oil, honey and vanilla with a fork until combined.

Add your wet to dry and mix until there is no dry - do not over mix.

Pour into a prepared loaf tin - flatten out and press the walnuts into the top. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake in a moderate oven about 30 - 35 minutes.

Turn out onto a wire rack and leave cool before slicing.

NOTES - Coconut flour can be tricky to find - it's not usually in coles or woolies so you do need a health food store to get it from - If you had to I would just substitute coconut but the consistency wouldn't quite be the same.

Gentle fibre is in the woolies macro range - it contains oatbran, linseed, psyllium seeds, psyllium husks. I add it to a variety of baking recipes and also sprinkle over yogurt but you can skip this - just use an extra 1/4 cup of almond meal or sub for your own mix of oat bran and linseeds even chia seeds whatever you have on hand. Coles also has a "fibre " mix in it's natura brand.

Great for an afternoon treat - or with a cup of tea :) - OR if I really have to I will share and pop it in the girls lunch boxes too. Don't forget to visit Mel's blog for her latest post too. Don't have any over ripe bananas? Here is my trick for that.

This week as part of our blog series for lunches + snacks + treats I'm going to share Richard's favourite treat.

Pesto and Crackers - YUM

When I first realised that crackers don't really fall in the clean eating guidelines I was pretty disappointed. I love crackers! They are simple always there and easy to throw some sort of topping on. So I was quick off the mark trying to find a recipe that would work. My usual rules of fast and foolproof applied. I started reading and all the recipes were very similar give or take a spice or two. Except they also said they you had to roll them out and let them sit ---Blah I thought too hard. So I didn't for ages.

Finally I decided to give them a go. Oh my - hands down simple simple simple - don't be afraid by the rolling and honestly they are so so yummy. Much nicer than store bought ones and they only take a few minutes to prep. I have tried a number of recipes now- some that incorporate coconut flour and others with oats - but none are as nice as this basic one that I have adapted from here.

2 cups ground almonds

1/2 teaspoon Pink Himalayan salt

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

2 tablespoons water

1 egg white

1 tablespoon macadamia nut oil

Method

Mix the almond meal, salt, poppy seeds and sesame seeds together.

Add in all the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon.

Preheat oven to a moderate heat.

Put a piece of baking paper on the bench and turn the contents of your bowl out on to it.

Flatten it down roughly with your hand.

Add another piece of baking paper over the top and with a rolling pin (or use a glass if you don't have a rolling pin).

Roll the mixture out into a rectangular shape. You can vary the thickness to be as you would like. (It doesn't rise so what you see is what you'll get when it's baked)

Move your rolled out dough to a flat baking tray. Run a knife through it to mark the crackers. (I have forgotten to do this a few times and you can do it after but it's better before)

Sprinkle with more salt if you like.

Bake for 10 minutes. Turn the oven off and leave for 10 more minutes to harden and brown up a little more.

Break into crackers and store in an airtight container. The longest we have had ours is about 4 days they get eaten.

Along with the crackers I make pesto. It's so easy in a food processor.

125 grams pine nuts

2 big bunches of basil from the farmers markets

4 garlic cloves crushed

100 grams grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup cold pressed olive oil

1 lemon juiced

Place it all into the food processor and process. This makes two cups which I split in half and put half in the freezer into a small Tupperware freezer mate. Freezes and defrosts beautifully. Don't forget to pop over to Mel's blog to see what she has in her lunchboxes this week.

Welcome to our first in a series of blog posts about Happy Lunches { and treats and snacks }. If you are a new reader you might like to catch up on our philosophy of clean eating over here. Mel and I are writing these posts together so some weeks you will hear from both of us and other weeks just one or the other.

First up let's talk about lunch boxes.

I know the topic has been done forever -at the start of every new year of school- freeze a popper, drink bottle, make it the night before etc I don't mean that - I'm talking about the actual lunch box itself.

I lived in Japan for a year and my host mother would pack me an obentoo lunch every day for school. They were serious works of art. I am all for creative but first thing in the morning or late at night - umm not so much.

I needed to get some sort of system happening that meant my two would be enjoying their lunches more - and maybe move past the fact that they no longer had a LCM bar, sugar filled yoghurt, chocolate muffin and ham and cheese sandwich in their containers.

Enter the obentoo concept without it being too tricky.

I am fortunate to have a Japan Mart in Southport - it's a newish concept here in Australia a bit like the 100en stores in Japan ( everything is one hundred yen ) Here they are $2.80. They have all sorts of great bits for obentoo for just $2.80 each. I managed to get the little winnie the pooh lunch box ( that has their savoury stuff in ) I do a second one too with sweet or fruit bits. I also found the egg shapers - you boil and egg and pop them in and they come out in the shape of the container. Cute tooth picks for holding things together, the silicone molds and also the little cutters.

So what if you don't have a $2.80 store?

With the exception of the egg molds which you can buy on line if you want to, you can easily substitute.

Just get toothpicks from the grocery store - there are all different ones.

Baking moulds also available in woolies or coles - or failing that get some paper ( foil would be better ) muffin or cupcake liners, and some shape cutters that you would use for cookies.

Lunch boxes - get a small plastic container - tupperware kmart target $2 store doesn't need to be winnie the pooh. Small is better trust me on this.

The other tip I have is put all the bits inside one big container or basket - so you can readily take that out of the cupboard when you go to prepare lunch.

I just chop things up smaller and they have a much larger variety than what they used to - inside each little cup I put a few bits, on the toothpicks I'll add other things and they munch away. Smaller amounts with an increased range is working perfectly for us.

Here was todays lunch box

Leftover Stirfry chicken and baby corn

Zuchini sticks

Pepitas

Boiled Egg

Cherry Tomato

Cheese

and

Kiwi Fruit

Blood Orange

Blueberries

Strawberries

Cherries

Sesame Snacks ( sesame seeds, glucose syrup and sugar ) I'll share some of the other "clean" "processed" foods that we use in another post soon - this is one of the few that has sugar in it. as well I throw into their lunch sack an apple or banana and a yoghurt. While this may seem like a huge amount of fruit it's actually not - One strawberry three cherries 1/4 kiwi fruit some berries 1/4 of an orange - it adds up to about one serve. But it's a rainbow of variety.

Don't forget to pop over to Mels blog - she has the cutest lunch box system ever.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be bringing you a new blog series in conjunction with the lovely Miss Mel :) It feels like forever since we have written and created together.

One of the challenges we have both found since changing our families way of eating has been to provide a happy healthy lunch box that the children actually eat. I had about three weeks of one child coming home each day saying I am hungry I couldn't eat my lunch it tasted yuck. Or my favourite comment I swapped with a friend for a nutella sandwich.

Hmm- We have a rule at home ( have always had it ) that you don't tell Mumma dinner was yuck. You always try it because she has spent time making it. It's the same rule for Daddy's dinners too - which eek can sometimes be more challenging. But it's our rule and we stick to it.

So I am not sure why the dinner rule did not suffice for lunches.

Needless to say I was lamenting to Mel about it one day and she confessed she was having similar conversations in her house too.

It certainly doesn't help that both of us have children in nut free schools which also cuts down options..

As well as lunch boxes there is the 4.30pm - 5.30pm I'm starving time. The girls get home about 4.30pm having had lunch at 11.30am - so they are always ravenous. I have to have afternoon tea prepared in the fridge if I am out, or ready to go the second they walk in the door. Mel and I started texting one another what was on for afternoon tea - or things that were hits or misses in the lunch box. We have gathered quite a little collection now and it's not as much an issue as it used to be.

Over the next few weeks we will share them with you too.

Even if you aren't clean eating or paleo eating you may like to have a read and it might help the what's for lunch /afternoon tea/can I have a treat questions that happen each day.

So do tell - are lunch boxes a problem in your house or do you have it set ??

Ours series will run on Tuesdays. Don't forget to pop over to Mel's blog too.

Welcome to my blog, I am so happy you came to visit. I share the stories of my life creating, documenting and loving as a Mumma to twin girls. I am navigating a clean eating lifestyle as I run towards being a breast cancer survivor.